Very nice to hear your thoughts.
So skepticism of everything we are told is foundational for the individual, for value, and well, life. Personally interpreting information, via reason, is to get closer to value.
When finding onself in a place like 'Stolen History', the only reasonable point of view becomes skepticism! All the evidence raises more questions than answers and the only certainty becomes uncertainty. My feeling is something to the effect of what the J.K. Rowling once said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."
Egocentric Relativism
Yes, subjectivity first then objectivity (if that's even possible) via verification.
In fact, this plays on what I think is the original dialectic - the individual and the collective.
I think it is Solipsistic in nature, but I agree it is useful to rethink the dialogue as firstly between the self and the world. Just as in childhood, every one starts as egocentric. Only later do we move our universal model by developing things like Theory of Mind.
"Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to ourselves and others, serving as one of the foundational elements for social interaction. Having a theory of mind is important as it provides the ability to predict and interpret the behavior of others."
As the Copernican revolution moving the universe away from the geocentric model to a heliocentric. We move from egocentric to something depersonalized, eco-.. centric?
Copernican Revolution, shift in the field of astronomy from a geocentric understanding of the universe, centred around Earth, to a heliocentric understanding, centred around the Sun, as articulated by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century. This shift marked the start of a broader Scientific Revolution that set the foundations of modern science and allowed science to flourish as an autonomous discipline within its own right.
Perhaps the Scientific Revolution succeeded to 'thingify' us by denying our own frame of reference.
Here this picture below illustrates a good example of how we are sold the notion of objectivity and how it looks so pretty when removing the individual from the center.
Nature of Deception
And with Theory of mind, we get the benefit of social, but we have to accept that communication is by its nature deceptive, yeah probably because no telepathy.
This is something I found on relativism. John Grote, 1865, I find it interesting because he uses the word deception to define it.
The notion of the mask over the face of nature is…. what I have called “relativism”. If “the face of nature” is reality, then the mask over it, which is what theory gives us, is so much deception, and that is what relativism really comes to. (Grote 1865: I.xi, 229).
In this sense, the 'veil of Maia' takes on a nuanced meaning (for me at least). The 'illusion' is the deception and ignorance. The world is not illusionary in its fleeting nature, but by being a world full of miscommunication and of misconceptions. (edit: and also I mean intentional deception)
Moral and Values of Relativism
Can we create value without regard for truth? The puzzle of Protagoras when he said , "Man is the measure of all things" I think is about the ability to constantly interpret and reinterpret, to give and take value from the world. But also to determine what we believe is good. An example is what God did for Adam because he was alone in the garden.
Genesis 2:18-20
The LORD God also said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.” 19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.…
Adam was the measure of all things in a search for what was good for him. He gave value by giving them names in an attempt to find a suitable helper. Likewise, the conscious is the measure of the unconscious. The individual makes subjective moral and value judgements all the time. But they are held to a standard. These I believe can only be identified as axioms.
If you ask me, any taught history is history of the collective governance structure, taught science is the science of the collective governance structure, taught spirituality is the spirituality of the governance structure, etc - ie the ideas the governance structure would have those it governs to believe
Definitely, and if you don't think for yourself, someone else will do it for you.
Reminds me in Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848) "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." People start with the indoctrination of ruling ideology that are called institutional, traditional, norms, status quo, and formed the acceptability of Overton's Window.
Briefly adding on my deep philosophy thoughts:
Even though a collective may agree, there is no final word on interpretation, and I think that is because there is a constant search for meaning. Meaning always comes in the form of stories which are the inventions, alterations, counterfeits, or forgeries that lead to hoaxes, psy ops, staged events, manufactured timelines...etc. Who knows the countless revisions, restorations, and reforms that have censored and silenced in the name of 'correctness'---dismissing the rest as fictions and fantasy.
And while interpretations may be always changing, the means for interpretation remain constant. So these are axioms that are not only real but discoverable. If we can measure something, then we have knowledge of some kind to measure it by. Even to a bias because a bias
is meaningful only with reference to a fixed, objective standard of fairness knowable to us all.
My take on axioms is that the individual point of view is identifiable within three distinct perspectives. The skeptic in us gives the possibility for negation. We can suspend judgement and ask questions, and say nothing is beyond a reasonable doubt. A relativist perspective allows for interpretations so we can make comparisons that let us reinterpret meanings and redefine terms based on new information. Being dogmatic gives us the possibility to have a standard to measure from. Without it, we cannot pass any kind of judgement.
Why are these perspectives so important? Because without axioms of perspective, we lose all possibility of a standard. How could all of these views exist without an underlying pattern? We cycle through perspectives in attempts to validate perspectives. These are the conditions for the possibility of holding any kind of view.
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Also, I recommend Rick Roderick's series "Self Under Siege" on Youtube... etc. He is a Duke University professor from the 90s. Even though he doesn't go into Stolen History level of skepticism, he makes excellent points to demonstrate how individuals have been losing ground in personal identity while becoming more and more dependent on mass media to tell them who they are.
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